A lump formed in Rachel’s throat the size of one of the moons of Mars. And after she had defied her family for him. Ah, well. It had been nice having a boyfriend for the hour it lasted. At least, she had not embarrassed herself by telling Nastasia.
“Oh, ho!” Sigfried’s eyebrows flew upward. “Valiant just replied: ‘I will not.’”
“He defied Dread?” Rachel cried in astonishment.
Valerie gave Rachel a second thumbs up. “This Valiant guy must like you.”
Sigfried continued, “Now Dread’s saying, ‘If you persist in romantically pursuing a thirteen-year-old, you will be thrown out of the Knights.’”
Rachel recalled how proud Gaius had been of having been asked to join the Knights of Walpurgis. The lump in her throat grew larger, perhaps to the size of Earth’s moon.
“Ooh! Valiant’s cheeky!” Sigfried crowed. “He laughed! He told Dread, ‘Good luck finding someone who can defeat me.’”
“Oh, my!” Rachel grabbed the headboard, her nails biting into the oak. A strange giddy sensation was taking hold of her, as if her blood had been replaced with wine.
She asked breathlessly, “What’s happening now?”
“Dread’s pointing his wand.” Sigfried reported excitedly. “A stream of blue sparkles hit Valiant. He’s not moving—standing motionless with a dumb look on his face. Okay, just kidding about the dumb look. Dread is saying, ‘I leave you here to contemplate the matter.’”
Through the window, Rachel could see Vladimir Von Dread tucking his wand back into his sleeve as he stalked across the lawn toward Roanoke Hall.
Gaius had stood up for her.
Her heart expanded, until it encompassed the whole solar system. She thought she had cared about Gaius before. That had been nothing to what she felt now. When the dean had questioned her, she had chosen to be loyal to him, even though defying Dean Moth had been the hardest thing she had ever done. Now, he had paid her back. He had stood up to the person who he had admitted, under the Spell of True Recitation, he admired more than any other.
“So, Gaius told his boss about asking you out, and his boss just turned on him? Bummer,” said Valerie.
“Valiant seemed surprised that Dread knew.” Siggy stroked Lucky’s fluffy, flame-red mane. “I don’t think he’s the one who told him.”
“How’d he find out?” Rachel cried. “We only just…”
She suddenly recalled the two tall silhouettes towering above the others gathering to repair Drake Hall.
Her father.
The floor dropped out from beneath her feet. It took a moment before she realized that this had not actually happened. She just felt as if it had. Her father had not bothered to come after her to talk to her.
Instead, he had gone to Dread.
“I should do something.” Rachel’s fingers were white where she grasped the headboard. She stared toward the darkened trees, behind which stood the frozen Gaius. “I should help.”
“You should do something,” agreed Valerie. “A girl’s gotta help her man.”
“I’ll free him.”
Leaping on her broom, she ducked low and shot through an open window toward the trees. The glowing phoenix and starburst had moved to hover over Drake Hall. Shadows gathered here thick and dark. Luckily, Rachel had been in this forest earlier that afternoon, when she helped the living porcelain doll bring tiny Magdalene Chase to the infirmary. Thinking back, she searched her memory, noting the location of every tree. Using the technique she used for gauging distances when flying, she rapidly built a model of the forest in her mind. Relying on this, she darted around the near-invisible trunks as easily as if it had been daytime.
As she grew closer to the place from which Von Dread had emerged, she slowed. She wanted to approach without Gaius seeing her. It pleased her to set him free, but she preferred nobody know. A boy mysteriously breaking free of a spell was impressive. A boy being freed by his girlfriend—his much younger freshman girlfriend—might seem embarrassing. Beside, she did not necessarily want him to know she had overheard his argument with Dread.
Drake Hall had been repaired. Once freed, he could go back to his dorm. She imagined Von Dread returning to find the younger boy there before him. The thought made her feel smug.
Gaius stood in a small clearing, as motionless as the first time she had kissed him. His back was to her. She thought of slipping off her steeplechaser and kissing him again. Instead, she landed behind a large oak and pressed her back to the rough bark. Peering around quickly, she cast the Word of Ending.
“Obé!”
Gaius started. He looked around wildly. Rachel ducked behind the oak. Pulling out his wand, Gaius ran through the trees. As he raced toward Roanoke Hall, he repeatedly touched the sapphire tip of his fulgurator’s wand to his chest. Each time, a silvery sheen coated his body. Rachel recognized this as the mirror spell he had used to protect her earlier that afternoon.
Jumping on her steeplechaser, she slipped through the forest after him. She hung back, not wanting to reveal her presence. Gaius sprinted across the lawn. He caught up with Von Dread just as the older boy entered the main hall.
Gaius pointed his wand at him. Rachel tensed. Was he going to attack his friend? Freeze him, perhaps?
“Vladimir!” he shouted.
The older boy turned. Gaius fired off a stream of blue sparkles. Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. Gaius had not attacked Von Dread from behind, even though that would have given him a huge advantage. A happy, bubbly feeling spread through her.
Young Mr. Valiant was chivalrous.
Von Dread parried the spell with a taflu cantrip. He trained his own wand on the younger boy. “We cannot duel out here. The tutors will interfere. Come inside.”
Gaius nodded, and the two young men disappeared into Roanoke Hall. Rachel flew up to the great oak doors, which bore the Roanoke heraldry of a seven-branched tree growing from a floating island with wings. She performed the cantrip for opening. One door wiggled slightly. The other did not even budge. Grinding her teeth in annoyance, she zipped sideways, flying from one great window to another, looking for Gaius.
By the time she found them, the two boys had left the dining hall. They were running down a hallway, firing spells at each other. Scarlet and blue sparks danced in the air, scattered from hexes that ricocheted off walls and staircases. Trumpet flourishes and the trill of a flute rang out, accompanying the enchantments. Silver glints dashed against a landscape painting, leaving a coat of frost over the picturesque pumpkins. Twisting vines and glowing golden bands that had failed to ensnare their target littered the hallway.
Rachel pressed her forehead and palm against the cold window pane and gazed in wonder. The two young men fought as Thaumaturges did, using their fulgurator’s wands to cast spells stored in the gems on the wand’s tips. Rachel was more familiar with Enchanters, who used musical instruments for their magic—as the young vampire-hunters from Dare Hall had, during the fight against the wraith. The Thaumaturge method allowed for much more magic to be cast much more quickly. She winced as she thought of how long it must have taken them to painstakingly cast and store the spellwork they currently were expending at high speed.
Most of their spells were enchantments, which burst forth from the wands with sparkling lights and notes of music. Some, however, were cantrips, which were invisible until they struck. Yet, both young men parried them. Rachel wondered how they knew the cantrips were coming.
Nastasia, Joy, and Sigfried’s roommate, Ian MacDannan, a mischievous, round-faced, red-haired boy with freckles, emerged from a classroom. They forgot their practicing and stood wide-eyed, gawking at the duel. Ian ventured too close and found himself constricted by a golden Glepnir bond. Emerging from another classroom, Salome Iscariot whooped with delight. She cheered Gaius on, jumping up and down in her excitement.
They stood like fencers, facing each other sideways. Dread shot and parried calmly, performing his task with extreme precision. His broad shoulders and towering he
ight gave a distinct impression of power and grace. Gaius fought back fearlessly, firing off enchantments one after another. He spent less time parrying, preferring to rely on his mirror spells to repel Von Dread’s spells.
Gaius was short for his age, wiry and slight, but he was holding his own, fierce concentration blazing in his eyes. Rachel’s heart beat with the motion of his wand arm, a feeling of glee running through her body.
He was doing this for her.
The two kept firing. Spells volleyed back and forth. Then, a swirl of red mist broke through Gaius’s mirror spell, striking him without bouncing back. Mist billowed around him, until she could no longer see him. When it cleared, he was gone. In his place stood a four-legged animal with a thick coat of curly white wool.
Gaius Valiant was a sheep.
Chapter Fourteen:
Weeping over Sheep
Gaius’s wand clattered to the ground. Dread pointed his own wand at it. Lightning crackled through the air, striking the length of teak and brass. The other students jumped back, alarmed. Ian’s red hair stood up from his head. The sheep baaed in terror and scampered backward into a wall. Dread crossed the intervening distance and stepped on the now-burnt wand, crushing the sapphire at the tip—the repository of all the stored spells—beneath the heel of his boot.
Then he strode away without a backward glance.
Flying to the nearest door, Rachel leapt from her broom and wrestled it open. Once inside, she jumped on Vroomie and flew at top speed, whipping around corners until she came to where the princess and the others had gathered around the sheep. She soared over the heads of the other students and leapt off. The sheep had backed into a corner, the white showing around its terrified eyes. Rachel knelt before it and spoke to Gaius, looking into its face.
There was no recognition, no sign of intelligence. Terror seized her, her heart swelling and contracting painfully. Had Dread killed Gaius?
• • •
Rachel’s friends helped her get the sheep to the infirmary. Nurse Moth met them. She was a nervous, quick, bird-like woman with a large nose, dressed in the white habit and wimple of the nuns of the Order of Asclepius. Tsking over the sheep, she pulled out her flute and played a song. Green sparkles came from her instrument and danced around the sheep, but Gaius did not revert to his normal form. Frowning, she tried several others, to no effect. Shaking her head, she departed for the back room.
Rachel sat with her arm around the terrified animal, her fingers sinking into its soft, fluffy fleece. Twice it bolted, stepping on her with sharp hooves. Her left hand and her right thigh throbbed. Her whole body shook. She gazed after the departing nurse with confusion and growing fear. Why had the nurse not been able to restore him to his proper shape?
“Psst,” she whispered, waving Nastasia over to where she knelt, hugging the sheep.
“Yes, Rachel?”
“Your magic school book—the one that opens to any textbook you desire,” Rachel asked fervently. “Can we try it? Maybe it will open to the spell that will fix Gaius.”
The princess frowned disapprovingly. “We could not cast such a complicated spell.”
“We don’t need to,” insisted Rachel. “We can show it to Nurse Moth.”
“I think not,” was the princess’s only reply.
If Nastasia had taken out a knife and cut her, it could not have hurt as much as this. The pain was so great, her body went numb. Rachel forced her numb body to breathe. Couldn’t Nastasia see how important Gaius was to her?
No, of course she could not. The princess thought Gaius was some wicked boy they should avoid, and no one had explained that he was fighting over Rachel.
She pressed her face into the sheep’s wooly fleece, trying to smother her fear. What if he stayed this way? What if the process of changing the sheep brain back into a human brain went awry, and he never recovered his intelligence? He had been such a bright boy—that had been one of the things she had found most attractive about him. She knew of people who had been damaged by spells and never recovered.
Oh, please let him get better!
Rachel stayed there, hugging the frightened beast until nurses arrived to take him to the Halls of Healing in New York City. As the visiting nurses departed, floating the terrified, bawling animal through the air, Rachel asked them if Gaius would be okay.
She received no answer.
• • •
The next hour passed in a blur. Rachel was aware of her friends talking and laughing in voices made overly-excited by the day’s events. But she could not seem to participate in the conversation. Everything around her seemed muted and far away. She wanted to go to sleep, but she was too tired to drag herself to bed. Eventually, a conversation caught her attention.
“The assistant dean called me to his office,” the princess informed Sigfried and Rachel as they finally walked back to Dare Hall, Lucky zigzagging beside them. It was nearly midnight, way after their normal ten o’clock curfew. The night had grown quite chilly.
“Assistant dean?” asked Siggy, “What is that? Is it related to Jimmy Dean? Do we have an office here just for sausages?”
“I’d like a sausage,” chimed Lucky. “I’d even be willing to eat a sausage officer.”
“Mr. Gideon, our true history tutor,” Nastasia explained patiently. “He is one of the two assistant deans. He explained this to us in class. Several times.”
“Did he?” Siggy yawned. “I wasn’t listening. What does he teach again? True Snoring?”
The princess ignored him. “Mr. Gideon informed me that we are to report for detention tomorrow afternoon. Apparently, since we board here, detention can be held on weekends.”
“Detention?” Rachel’s eyelids were barely open. “For what?” Only after she spoke did she remember the broken thinking glass in the belfry of the Watch Tower and the skunk.
Sigfried shrugged, uninterested. “Adults are always punishing you for something.”
“For disobeying the dean and leaving the infirmary, of course,” the princess replied.
The fog cleared from Rachel’s mind. “What? They’re giving us detention for saving the world?”
“We did not save the world,” Nastasia scoffed. Her hand rested on the back of her Tasmanian tiger. “Exaggeration is unbecoming. We saved a few lives. This is no small thing, though, especially to those whom we helped.”
“But…” Rachel tripped over the uneven gravel. Her arms windmilled in an effort to keep her balance. Righting herself, she cried, “We’re fighting Veltdammerung! Dr. Mordeau said her boss was from Outside. And there are all these new magics, and your visions, and the Omen of the Doom of Worlds Raven. You don’t think the whole world is at risk?”
“True, there is disturbing magic from outside the world, but I see no evidence of Veltdammerung,” the princess replied firmly. “They were bad people, certainly, but, like our proctors, I grow tired of the claim that every rogue is the Morthbrood come again.”
“But Dr. Mordeau said—” Rachel began.
Siggy interrupted her. “The Velt-who-ha now?”
“Veltdammerung.” Rachel sighed patiently. “It’s an organization that consisted of the Terrible Five and their servants. By their servants, I mean several groups: Unseelie monsters, thugs, cultists, supernatural monstrosities, and an ancient organization of witches and warlocks who practice black magic called the Morthbrood.”
“The Horrible Who?” Siggy took an apple from his pocket and tossed it in the air. He took three huge bites and then threw the rest to Lucky, who downed it in a single gulp.
“Not a sausage or an officer,” crowed Lucky, “but still tasty!”
“We don’t eat people,” Sigfried reminded him.
“Oh! Right!” agreed Lucky.
“The Terrible Five,” repeated Rachel. “The evil sorcerers who terrorized the world when my parents were in college? You know, the guys that Mr. Fisher told you about?”
“Oh yeah, that guy who wore nothing but his own hair Mr. Fishe
r beat, and some other guys who fought some other unimportant people.”
“Sigfried, you shouldn’t go around saying that. You upset Wendy Darling.”
“Who?”
“Wendy…You know, the girl in our dorm? The girl whose father we talked to today?”
“We talked to someone’s father?” Siggy said blithely. “When?”
“Argh!!!” Rachel grabbed her head. “Your memory cannot actually be this faulty!”
Sigfried shrugged. “What do I care about these things?”
“We can’t save the world, if we aren’t tracking the clues.”
“We were not saving the world,” Nastasia repeated again, firmly. “As to detention, justice requires that we be reprimanded for disobedience—no matter what the justification. Our later actions may have been commendable. But we disobeyed and must face the consequences.”
They reached the doors of Dare Hall and separated. Sigfried headed across the foyer for the arch that led to the boys’ side. Rachel and the princess climbed the sweeping staircase to their room on the fourth floor. Kitten and Astrid, their roommates, were already asleep. Rachel tried to get undressed without summoning the will-o-wisps out of their nighthoods. With her new familiar sense, she could feel her cat Mistletoe curled up under the bed. She thought of climbing under there and getting him—it would be nice, to have something warm and cuddly to hug—but the effort involved was too great.
As she fumbled in the semi-darkness, trying to find her nightgown, Nastasia approached. She pressed something into Rachel’s hand “I picked this up earlier. You might wish to return it.”
Rachel felt a hard, narrow object. The odor of charred wood assailed her. Moving to the hallway, she held the thing in the faint triangle of light that came through the partially-opened door. In her hands lay a burnt, blackened fulgurator’s wand, with only the jagged base of a sapphire tip.
Rachel’s stomach did a triple flip. She touched the scorched wood tentatively, recalling how Gaius had used it to cast the mirror spell that had allowed her to defeat Remus Starkadder, earlier that very afternoon. She gazed at it and thought of how much work he must have put into maintaining it, of how difficult it must have been for a poor farm boy to afford such an object, and of what a good duelist he had become. She recalled how, during the Knights of Walpurgis meeting the night before, Gaius had handily defeated the boasting braggart, Seymour Almeida.
The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel (A Book of Unexpected Enlightenment 2) Page 16